The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You article claims that the food industry is based almost entirely on a series of lies that most of us just prefer to believe. Everything we love to eat is a scam article tells that pretty much on the same line. So how easy is to fool our tastes? Yes. Can we make artificial food that tastes like traditional food? Yes. Can we fool our senses electrically? Yes.
Electric Chopsticks Add Salty Flavor Where None Exists article tells how a special pair of chopsticks built by Nimesha Ranasinghe could let you experience that great salty taste without actually consuming any salt. Nimesha Ranasinghe is an assistant professor and director of the University of Maine’s Multisensory Interactive Media Lab is researching on sending sensations remotely – for example how to transmit flavors over the internet. Ranasinghe was able to successfully recreate saltiness, sourness, and bitterness tastes using metal chopsticks as electrodes. Tastes are generated by sending different voltage and frequency of the electricity using battery and an Arduino to chopsticks. Some more details can be read from IEEE Spectrum article Hacking the Flavor of Food With Electric Chopstick that also tells that he also made an electric soup bowl that imparts flavors when people slurp directly from the bowl and a virtual cocktail glass. There is also scientific article on the study (behind paywall).
Researchers can also create virtual smells by electrocuting your nose. IEEE Spectrum article These Researchers Want to Send Smells Over the Internet tells that researchers have used electrical stimulation of cells in the nasal passages to produces sweet fragrances and chemical odors. The researchers who are working on “digital smell” are still a very long way from practical applications—in part because their technology’s form factor leaves something to be desired. Right now, catching a whiff of the future means sticking a cable up your nose. By stimulating your olfactory nerve with a system that looks like one of those old-fashioned kids electronics kits.
We know that good stories and nice visual apperarance can me your food taste better. How about using virtual reality for that? Virtual reality makes food taste better article tells that Cornell University food scientists found that cheese eaten in pleasant VR surroundings tasted better than the same cheese eaten in a drab sensory booth.That’s right: cheese tastes better on a virtual farm versus inside a blank, empty cyberia.
If we can make taste and smell artificially can we make food artificially? Yes we can. Some researcher see that there’s a looming crisis over the world’s growing appetite for meat. Cultured meat, also called clean meat, synthetic meat or in vitro meat, is meat produced by in vitro cultivation of animal cells, instead of from slaughtered animals. This is actual meat grown from animal cells and variously described as cultured, synthetic, in-vitro, lab-grown or even “clean” meat.
On August 5th 2013, the world’s first lab-grown burger was cooked and eaten at a news conference in London. In 2013 the first lab-grown burger was served up, so where are our synthetic steaks now? The artificial meat factory – the science of your synthetic supper article takes a look at the cultured meat market and the race to mass-produce in-vitro meat. Would you eat slaughter-free meat? Some people have do that already.
We Tried The First Lab-Grown Sausage Made Without Killing Animals. This Is What It Tasted Like article tells the experience on tasking lab made sausage. New Age Meats’ sausage was the first in history to be made with fat and muscle cells made in laboratory. And according to article it tasted like sausage made of normal meat. The places where the meat of the future will be produced can look like today’s brewery. Would you eat slaughter-free meat? article shows chicken nuggets that were grown in a lab from cells taken from a living animal.
Protein produced from electricity to alleviate world hunger article tells that researches can generate protein using just air and sun. A batch of single-cell protein has been produced by using electricity and carbon dioxide in a joint study by the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Protein produced in this way can be further developed for use as food and animal feed. Scientists claim that generating protein from co2 and electricity from solar panel is far more efficient than making meat protein traditionally.
I am thinking the is the time when synthetic food will meet virtual taste. When this has been said in public, I will expect someone to do that pretty soon.
14 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Onko laboratoriopihvi vastaus lihan kysynnän kasvuun? Israelissa esitellyn keinolihan maussa riittää parannettavaa
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10567201
Keinotekoisesti valmistetun lihan toivotaan vähentävän maatalouden ympäristöpäästöjä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Augment your tongue’s senses with the Cthulhu Shield
https://blog.arduino.cc/2019/01/31/augment-your-tongues-senses-with-the-cthulhu-shield/
When these electrodes are fired, they activate nerve fibers on the tongue, producing a feeling like that of carbonated bubbles popping. This can then be used to convey information to the user, whether this is visual, sound, or even Internet updates or other non-traditional stimuli. Importantly, it can also be utilized as an interface for tongue computer control.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2018/11/15/researchers-seek-to-create-the-digital-smell-interface/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Lickable Screen Can Recreate Almost Any Taste or Flavor Without Eating Food
https://gizmodo.com/this-lickable-screen-can-recreate-almost-any-taste-or-f-1843609903
No matter how they may make you feel, licking your gadgets and electronics is never recommended. Unless you’re a researcher from Meiji University in Japan who’s invented what’s being described as a taste display that can artificially recreate any flavor by triggering the five different tastes on a user’s tongue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/21/higher-steaks-brings-home-the-bacon-revealing-lab-grown-pork-belly-and-bacon-strips/
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printed Meat Is Here, But Will You Switch Traditional Meat For Cultured Alternatives?
https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/3d-printed-meat-is-here-but-will-you-switch-traditional-meat-for-cultured-alternatives/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Better Meat Co. unveiled Rhiza, a fermented plant-based meat alternative that’s faster and easier to produce.
How The Better Meat Co. Is Turning Tiny Organisms Into Plant-Based Meat
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetforgrieve/2021/06/08/how-the-better-meat-co-is-turning-tiny-organisms-into-plant-based-meat/
The Better Meat Co. is using a fermentation process to create a realistic plant-based meat alternative that can replicate ground meats or whole muscle cuts. The Better Meat Co.
Today’s plant-based food companies are clear on the fact that they’ll need to win over flexitarians to succeed rather than just appealing to the tiny percentage of the population that’s already vegetarian or vegan.
The Sacramento-based B2B company makes plant-based ingredients for companies that turn them into either 100% plant-based meat, seafood and poultry alternatives or blended products that replace a portion of the animal meat with the plant-based alternative.
“We only sell plant-based formulations, both to plant-based companies and also to animal- based companies. Our goal is to help the food industry use fewer animals,” co-founder and CEO Paul Shapiro says.
On Tuesday, the three-year-old company unveiled its newest product, a fermented plant-based ingredient called Rhiza. Rhiza is made by feeding potatoes and sorghum to a specific type of microflora, in a fermentation set-up that resembles a brewery operation, Shapiro explains. The process can create pounds of the plant-based ingredient in several hours, and the end product has a neutral flavor and texture that lends itself to everything from ground meat to whole muscle cuts, he says.
Rhiza is high in protein, iron and fiber, the company says, and the only production limitation is sourcing the quantity of sorghum and potatoes needed to keep fermentation going full-time.
The Better Meat Co. built its business on a signature product that is actually made with peas, algae and a few other plant ingredients, and the the products are tailored to the type of meat, poultry or seafood product the customer plans to produce.
The process isn’t unusual in the industry — most plant-based meats are made with protein from either soy, wheat or peas, Shapiro says. The ingredients work, but the process of growing and harvesting the crop, milling it into a powder and isolating it to increase the protein content is time consuming and making it mimic the texture of animal meat has been a big challenge.
Rhiza, the new product unveiled today, provides a way to overcome those challenges and time constraints, Shapiro says.
“We use a microflora and we feed it common ingredients, and [the process] converts those common ingredients into a product that’s naturally textured like meat,” he says. “We create a meat textured product simply through fermentation of common ingredients. You can take it out of the fermenter and add oils and flavors and turn it into a finished product.”
Shapiro has been vegan for 30 years and is the author of the 2018 book “Clean Meat” about the quest to grow meat without animals.
“Basically I was concerned that meat consumption continues to be on the rise,” he says. “Despite a rising awareness of the problems associated with raising animals for food, demand for meat continues to rise. Despite all the progress being made in the plant-based meat sector, we have never raised more animals for food than we do today.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cultured Meat Is Now Being Mass-Produced In Israel
“Our goal is to make cultured meat affordable for everyone.”
https://www.freethink.com/articles/cultured-meat-production?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=freethinkdiyscience
Tomi Engdahl says:
I’ll have the steak, hold the meat. Meati, which creates fungi-based meat alternatives, has raised $50 million ahead of a commercial launch in 2022. https://trib.al/P7Ur80B
Expect Fungi-Based Steak On Your Plate By 2022: Meati Raises $50 Million
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2021/07/06/expect-fungi-based-steak-on-your-plate-by-2022-meati-raises-50-million/?sh=4daa1bbd3264&utm_source=ForbesMainFacebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainFB
The race to commercialize the best-tasting alternatives to meat is starting to sizzle: A mushroom-based startup headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, called “Meati,” just raised $50 million.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Columbia Decides 3D Printed Food Tastes Like Chicken
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/26/columbia-decides-3d-printed-food-tastes-like-chicken/
Researchers at Columbia have used multi-wavelength lasers to cook 3D-printed chicken. Apparently, it tastes like chicken. We were not overly surprised that 3D printed chicken protein cooked up to taste like chicken, but, then again, you have to do the science.
https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/now-were-cooking-lasers
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/worlds-most-advanced-labgrown-meat-facility-opens-in-california/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Company Wants To Turn Celebrities Into Lab-Grown Salami – And It’s Perfectly Possible
https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/a-company-wants-to-turn-celebrities-into-labgrown-salami-and-its-perfectly-possible/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Is How That “TV You Can Taste” Actually Works
Learn how this crazy taste-able TV actually works.
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-is-how-that-tv-you-can-taste-actually-works-179b3b1b9729
The screen itself, which is a small and completely mundane LCD, sits below a thin transparent film. That film comes off of a roller, over the top of the LCD’s surface, and onto another output roller (where it will, presumably, be stored until disposal). Between licks, the rollers spin to advance fresh film onto the screen.
That roller system is also key to how the system dispenses flavors for you to taste. Before the film slides in front of the LCD, it sits in a chamber. In that chamber, there are a handful of aerosolized flavors. Those are “five basic tastes” (plus a few extras, apparently) which the machine can combine to create the full spectrum of flavor — theoretically, at least. It’s similar how the LCD itself can produce the full visible color spectrum using just red, blue, and green subpixels. In reality, I have my doubts that these flavor sprays can actually create convincing approximations of real foods.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D-printing insects mixed with vegetables could help us to prevent food crisis
Scientists succeeded in studies that can prevent the food crisis with a 3D printer.
https://interestingengineering.com/science/3d-printing-insects-mixed-with-vegetables-could-help-us-to-prevent-food-crisis